1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to filtration of medicinal vapors, more specifically filtration of medicinal vapors containing smoke particles, other particulate matter, tar, and one or more volatilized medicinal compounds.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Medicinal arts have evolved over millennia to treat various maladies and injuries. There are a plethora of pharmaceutical products available to treat everything from cancer, anxiety, or pain. Before individual compounds were isolated and associated with their beneficial effect, civilizations relied on natural products from which some modern drugs derive. For example, aspirin—or more accurately the active precursor to aspirin—has been appreciated historically and holistically as a component of willow tree bark. The beneficial effects of aspirin can be drawn from the willow tree bark if an individual imbibes a tea made from the bark or simply chews on the bark for an extended period of time. In modern times, aspirin has been purified away from the contaminants or other non-aspirin related compounds within willow tree bark and is readily available in tablet form and at various dosages in nearly every modern pharmacy around the world.
Regardless of the purity and availability of pharmaceutical products, some individuals choose holistic methods to treat ailments. In some instances, a natural product may be more readily available, or available at reduced price, compared to the analogous pharmaceutical product. In other instances, the individual may prefer using a natural product over swallowing a pill or injecting a purified substance. In some limited, the science behind holistic medicinal treatments has yet to be fully elucidated, giving the consumption and/or use of whole natural products an enigmatic benefit over modern pharmaceutical approaches.
Regardless of the rationale, holistic medicine and similar approaches where the whole natural product is used can be associated with certain risks. To obtain the desired benefit, the whole natural product is often consumed or used in the generation of a medicinal end product. Because these approaches do not rely on a finely purified product, there can be contaminants depending on the mode of administration. For example, individuals medicated with medicinal marijuana often receive the desired medicinal effect by smoking whole dried plant matter. In addition to producing volatilized medicinal compounds, burning dried plant matter also produces significant quantities of soot, ash, burning embers, and tar, which can be inhaled by the user. While cannabinoids have been received with greater acceptance as being generally safe and effective in treating a variety of ailments, there remains a major risk of inadvertently co-inhaling particulate materials in addition to the volatilized medicinal compounds of interest.